SUMMERY SUNSHINE

Well ... what a change in the weather, it actually is behaving like summer ... blimey!

Blue skies, hardly a cloud to be seen and so, a good chance to get more hay harvested, as the saying goes "Better late than never." The quality won't be as good as things have overgrown and the fields are past their optimum best for sugar content in the stems.

<<< this field is past its best with the grasses starting to go over and the bracken encroaching in from the boundary means a loss of winter feed, but ... with this farm having cattle, it can at least be baled for winter bedding.

This very large hayfield >>> was mown ten days ago and then the rain came in and it simply could not be harvested. Today there were two tractors were busy turning it to get it aerated and dry, to be baled tomorrow, but at least the crop is not totally lost.

The haybob lifts and turns the hay and places it in lines ready for the baling machine. These will be the big cylindrical 4ft bales used for the cattle and sheep in the winter ahead.
With the grasses beginning to change colour on the commons, there seems to be little difference between the grasses of the moorlands and the agricultural fields of harvest ...

On the commons one gets to meet the occasional inquisitive sheep that doesn't run away as soon as it sees the dog. They were both very calm , just eyeing each other up then with a mouth full of grass, the ewe gently ambled off as we headed back homeward, the sound of busy tractors coming from all over the place.

With the sun out, these thistle stems were just lit up with light, showing of the red colouration of their needle-sharp, protective spines. I've seen thistles this year over eight foot tall and foxgloves over ten feet high!
But, much as they are a pest species of plant, I find them fascinating ...

especially when their heads run to seed ... 

<<< One tiny little thistle seed caught in a spiders web amongst the gorse flowers. To think that this minute thing could in the future become a multi-headed pest of a prickly plant just like the gorse bush it is temporarily resting in, is really quite amazing. But though flowering plants like these are good for the bees and butterflies on the moorland, they also dramatically reduce the available grazing for the sheep on the commons. At least the gorse is much slower growing. All around us this morning there were young Skylarks and Meadow Pipits practising their flight and various finches and tits darting in and out of the trees and bushes, it was a lovely summery sight and sound as well as the tractors busily harvesting the fields ... so welcome after the many days we've had of mizzle, drizzle and rain. 

One last look over the fence at the busy landscape and that was us headed for home.